


My Heart's Fit To Break

by OasisTrap



Category: Victoria (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bookstore, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And yet, Angst, Dick Pics, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lady Caroline Lamb Deserves Better TBH, Nobody Expects the Angstquisition, Phallic References, Pre-Relationship, Sorry Not Sorry, Unprompted Critique on Dick Pics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-02
Packaged: 2019-01-08 04:32:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12247050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OasisTrap/pseuds/OasisTrap
Summary: Later, when she reflect on the lost youth of him in the picture, she would think of how the world is now bereft of a soul so dear, so carefree.





	My Heart's Fit To Break

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coyotestango](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coyotestango/gifts).



> Title from the poem by Lady Caroline Lamb.
> 
> I have an outline of the entire verse somewhere, but basically: Victoria inherits an indie bookstore from her uncle and all the employees sneered at how feudal it is but she graduated cum laude from London School of Economics so nobody complains least of all the head manager our dashing William Lamb.
> 
> Not much background and stuff here because I want to focus on
> 
> (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧the angst✧ﾟ･: *ヽ(◕ヮ◕ヽ)
> 
> Hey if anyone's up for more I'd be more than happy to expand on this verse.
> 
> This is a response of a prompt given by coyotestango. It's that meme about the boss getting a dick pic. You know the one.  
> The Young William in the picture is Rufus Sewell circa Middlemarch mixed with the charm of his Petruchio--but less skillful with make-up, of course.

Later, when she reflect on the lost youth of him in the picture--how the lines of his face are smoother, his swirling, obsidian mane of a hair longer, mesmerizing eyes with shadows of his pupils less like twin wells and more like spots one would see on a springtime ladybird on one's window sill--she would think of how the world is now bereft of a soul so dear, so carefree. She would wish to bring back the man frozen there forever, a relic of better times before death and sorrow.

 

Right now, she is curiously examining the old photograph of this boy, pale, wiry thin, and stark naked. Face with streaks of make-up: lipstick runs across his mouth up to his left cheek, mascara running down and smudged around his eyes. He is lying on a bed, head propped up on a pillow, arms akimbo, looking up to the camera above. His smile between shyness and smugness, as if he was putting up a reluctant front but secretly delighted to be seen as ridiculous as he was. Perhaps in the past nobody thought that the brooding high-collared William could, god forbid, have fun, and this is the proof that would silence their doubt if it ever see the light of day--which Victoria somehow doubts. Nevertheless, she is sure that the man in this photograph is by definition a libertine and a flirt for his shyness have nothing to do with his nakedness. In fact, as she trails her eyes all over the lower part of his body, Victoria is sure that he deliberately arranged his legs just so, bent his knees, spread his thighs, to flaunt that sizable prick of his (which, in momentary disbelief and utter embarrassment, Victoria has to remind herself that it is her kindest, most reliable friend William's prick).

 

Quite unrecovered from the thought that she is currently ogling an employee of hers, Victoria sit back and try to calm the erratic beating of her heart.

 

_Deep breaths. Think of anything other than William's huge cock--oh god no, it's useless. John Conroy's face! Dash's vomit! John Conroy falling into a pile of horseshit!_

 

_Better._

_No, definitely don't think about how he's actually uncircumcised._

_Anyway._

 

She tempers the growing heat in her stomach by telling herself that William is indeed a regular Don Juan. His indulgence with women is common knowledge among friends--"There was Caroline after Caroline and then Natalie and then Elena and maybe Rebecca but definitely Serena." Emma once revealed to her after two margaritas, running out of fingers in both hands--but it is generally assumed that it happened after the death of his wife.

 

At that thought, Victoria turns the photo in her hand. Lo and behold, an inscription in effortless cursive:

 

_"Dearest William,_

_for the best summer of our lives_

_and for you, my love_

_the radiant, serene, and unobscured*._

_Yours, C."_

 

The photographer was none other than his wife, the first Caroline.

A hitch in her throat; Victoria is choking on unexplained jealousy.

 

* * *

 

 

"You did what?"

 

"Okay, but, funny story, right?"

 

"There's nothing funny about my employer finding a naked picture of me in her coat!"

 

"No, I mean, the story about how me and Skerrett found it and we were, like, the gayest people within 10-mile radius of your house and unable to appreciate the finer points of a dick if it was put inside a glass case in the British Museum and got a 5-star review from the guardian--"

 

"Emma."

 

The quiet boiling anger of William Lamb Melbourne's droning voice hits Emma like a fucking truck.

Surely, this apparition cannot be real. William is never angry. He cannot physically simulate and emotionally retain anger, it is not in his nature.

 

Trying hard to calm himself, he emphasises the multiple punctuations in his next speech with deadly precision.

 

"I. Am going. To lose. My job."

 

"Nonesense, you have an objectively nice cock, if I may say so. No reason for a dismissal."

 

Emma nervously grins and tips the cup of coffee--best hangover cure ever--towards Will before taking a long sip.

 

They are sitting in the café half of the bookstore, The Buckingham, with Emma nursing a terrible post-party headache and William in front of her, for all the world seem ready to either strangle her or break the table in two.

 

After a quick flash of various emotions on his face--desperation, anxiety, fatigue--William smooths his contorted face with his hands, clutches his head, and props his elbows on the table in defeat before she even managed to put her cup back on the saucer.

 

His acceptance comes too fast and it makes her feel impossibly guiltier.

 

"Seriously, she fancies you."

 

"That's even worse. Now I have to resign."

 

"What? No!"

 

"It's... It's very improper."

 

"Don't you dare! No, don't move. I will march to her office right now and tell her that this is all a misunderstanding--"

 

"No, sit down."

 

"I'm serious Will, I--"

 

"If someone's going to explain my nude photograph to my boss and how come it ended up in her coat pocket, it's going to be me."

 

* * *

 

Upstairs, in her mess-clattered office, Victoria is sitting behind her desk, gingerly covering _that bit_ of Will's picture with her hand to observe his handsome face more closely.

 

_Were they, perhaps, after a toss on the sheet and her off-hand comment about William's cherubic qualities, feeling playful enough to play with Caroline's make-up and, in the middle of smearing lipstick on his lips, she made a joke that made him laugh, inevitably ruining all her effort, and him, trying to dampen her ire, attempted to put on the mascara by himself and failing miserably--_

 

A knock on the door interrupted the scene playing in Victoria's head.

 

"Ma'am, it's me."

 

She jerks and almost falls off her chair. The photo ends up on the floor and she is forced to crawl so that she can snatch it and hide it in her jeans' pocket. She stands on shaky legs, making pretence of shuffling random papers on her desk.

 

"Y-yees, William?"

 

"May I come in?"

 

"Yes, of-ofcoursecomein."

 

She is looking everywhere but his face, blushing uncontrollably. Likewise, he is now blushing too. Rubbing the back of his neck and being all _god in heaven she has seen me naked_!

 

"Can I... sit down?"

 

"Yes! Please! A cuppa? I will--"

 

She robotically turns her back on him. There is a table with a portable electric stove and a pot of water behind her. She busies herself with preparing tea, heating the water, and keeping her cool in the process. Alas, the awareness of him sitting behind her only make her more anxious and she ends up making too much of a racket for merely preparing a pair of cups.

 

After a while, it is apparent that he would not attempt to start the conversation. Putting the proverbial big pants on, Victoria begins to speak.

 

"Uh, are you here for the ehm. The ehm." _Get a grip, Alexandrina Victoria Fuck All Kensington._

 

"Yes." He sounds unfathomably exhausted. "I'm here to explain the picture and hand in my resignation--"

 

"What? No! Why?" She turns around in surprise. Upon seeing the embarrassment in his face, her awkwardness diminished until it is replaced by amusement. He does look perfectly adorable when he's shy, isn't he? The reddening cheeks--

 

"Wait, no." _Not the right time to be distracted by his face._ "I will not accept." She huffs and puffs like a petulant child. "There is no reason for you to quit other than mere embarrassment, William."

 

She can see that he's surprised. "But--"

 

"I know it's Emma who put it in my pocket." She lifts her chin in self-assurance. "Probably as a prank. But if you think that I will hold you up for it, you are mistaken."

 

"How--"

 

"I-I figure that," She slips both of her hands in her pocket. "If you want to...say, make a proposition," She fingers the edge of the photo. "You wouldn't use a photograph taken by your late wife."

 

Silence.

 

“Hardly your style, anyway, right? Leaving... what is essentially,” Victoria exhales. “A dick pic. B-but,” She holds up a finger like a schoolmarm explaining a lesson. “An artistic one, nonetheless, not the coarse, unappetizing—“

 

Completely baffled, William cuts her off "How do you know that Caroline took the picture?"

 

Victoria opens her mouth to answer, but then, unable to find the words, she takes out the picture from her pocket and gives it to him. His fingers are cold with sweat when he takes it. The writing in black cursive on the upside. He stares at them for long seconds, then his eyes start to water and he blinks away the unshed tears.

 

"I...I forgot."

 

Victoria takes a step closer to him, moved by the profound sadness in his features. Resolved, she takes his arm.

 

"You need some air. Let's go to the park. I'll turn off the stove-- oh."

 

She never did turn it on after all.

 

* * *

 

Perhaps it's the uncommonly warm air and the improbable sun peeking between the clouds in rainy October, or the familiar path through the mostly empty park he's walked on a thousand times before, but nevertheless, it helps William found his courage to speak and bare everything to her.

 

"We met in university."

 

"I figured." She kicks a stray pebble away from their path.

 

He smiles at her quick retort.

 

"I-it's just, you look very _very_ young there. Not that I look that hard. I mean, not hard, nothing is hard! I mean--"

 

His smile is getting wider. His shoulders shaking, holding back laughter.

 

".....please continue."

 

A cough of amusement. "Right. I'm a bastard, do you know that?"

 

"I assume you mean literally?"

 

"Yes, I am the product, if you will, of my mother's affair with another man. Her husband was never very loving, but he didn't treat me harshly either."

 

"Really."

 

"Yes. Surprising, isn't it? I have to say that I admire his kindness." He pauses. "Despite the limits of it. He was not a presence in my life. I was ever alone with my mother."

 

"I'm sorry."

 

"I preferred it that way, actually. But the point is," He rubs his chest absently, a gesture of discomfort. "That was part of the reason why I didn't mind having a very open relationship with Caroline."

 

"Oh, so you two were...?"

 

"She joked that she only married me because her surname was horrid."

 

"She sounds very... practical."

 

William laughs. "Our marriage was, at least."

 

They have arrived at the side of the lake. A silent empty bench waiting for them, calling. William gestures with his hand. Victoria takes a seat first, he follows shortly beside her.

 

The stillness of the water draws them deep.

 

"It was very modern of you two." Victoria turns to look at him--the side of his face, the lines there once were softer, so beloved. "It must be what, 50 years ago?"

 

William gives her an unamused look. She giggles.

 

"Please. It's bad enough I can practically be your father and you've seen my--" He clears his throat.

 

"Yes?" She props her chin on her joined hands, smirking.

 

"Anyway." The blush on his cheeks is back, to her delight. "Yes, we had relations with other people when we were married. Yet, for some reason..." He trails a finger on a crack in the wood of the bench they're sitting on. "I wanted children. She was reluctant at first. I gave her time. I didn’t want to force her, but I wasn’t really dismissing the idea."

 

Victoria holds her breath.

 

"She asked why her when I could have the children of other women even though we were married. I said I couldn't picture any of them having my baby." He searches for her eyes and, finding the worry there, holds his stare with weariness in his own. "She was the one I truly loved."

 

She couldn't breathe. There is a fist around her heart, clenching.

 

"We had a son, Augustus."

 

Softly, she whispers. "Had?"

 

He gives her a pained smile. "He was--unwell. But we loved him. We'd do everything, anything for him." He inhales. "He... he died before his twelfth birthday."

 

She grasps his hand in both of hers.

 

"Caro never recovered." Seemingly just realised that he's started to cry, William brush away the lone tear on his cheek, now red for an entirely different reason. "She went away for a while--found this man, Jorge Byron. Ridiculous name. A poet who wanted to be both Borges and Byron at once." He laughs humourlessly. "He hurt her, he didn't do right by her. I was so mad, I--"

 

Victoria pulls him into her embrace.

He would feel bad about crying on her shoulder, staining her jacket with his long-festering grief.

 

But that's later.

Now, he's comfortably warm in her arms, letting the tears flow freely.

 

* * *

 

He didn't say that he used to sit in the same bench with Caro.

 

He still makes a habit to sit there every time he’s in the park, the same place where they spent a lot of hours just talking and talking and once when it was dark and quiet and nobody around they tumbled and fell together in passion, in heat, with urgency--

 

He didn't say that he could almost still see her there every time, smiling that cryptic smile of hers that made a lot of men wonder, what was she, this maddening nymph, thinking?

 

A lot of them, blinded by lust, would assume something base and dirty.

 

Only he knew the truth for he once asked her the question.

No one else ever thought to ask, not even Byron.

**Author's Note:**

> *My Heart's Fit To Break by Lady Caroline Lamb
> 
> My heart's fit to break, yet no tear fills my eye,  
> As I gaze on the moon, and the clouds that flit by;  
> The moon shines so fair, it reminds me of thee,  
> But the clouds that obscure it are emblems of me.
> 
>  
> 
> They will pass like the dreams of our pleasures and youth,  
> They will pass like the promise of honor and truth,  
> And bright thou shalt shine when these shadows are gone,  
> All radiant, serene, unobscur'd—but alone.


End file.
